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Still writing the last Travel Entry

Now posting on the Home Updates page 01/31/09

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China Time:

 


Travel Date: 1/20/2009
Subject: Lunchtime and Dinner

What we did today:
After the photo shoot at the White Swan, eight of our nine families decided to walk over to a favorite restaurant of many adoptive families for lunch. (The other family decided to beat us all to the bargains and just start shopping!)

Hello, Lucy’s…table for 40, please.

Out to the patio, we marched. Well, everyone except me walked, but Keziah Huidong and I were entertaining each other by literally marching for a while today, “Left, Right, Left.” I kept telling myself that this was a great vocabulary building activity?

Lucy’s staff kept pulling together table after table until a long row of tables now could accommodate the whole group. What fun!

Originally, before we traveled, I wondered how I would ever spend almost two weeks of my life with a group of strangers. What if we just didn’t get along? God has taken care of all the details. From all over the US, different jobs, different background, we’ve come together as an incredible group. It is so much fun to spend this time together. They’ve sung karaoke on the bus and have taken crazy pictures to act out some of the crazy Chinese translated signs. We’ve been sharing some of the highest highs and lowest lows with one another. We are all homesick and long to leave China and travel to our respective homes, but I will miss these folks so much. I also can’t wait to see how these kids all grow and change. I try to imagine what they will be like in just one year.

Lunch…right…lunchtime. Well taking orders from so many people and then filling them takes a long time. Gradually the kids (and some sad’s) began to wander over to the open areas of the patio into more of a park-ish setting. People were playing with a hacky-sack type kicking toy and allowed one of the dads to join in. Soon the kids were running and playing as well.

Finally the food started to arrive…in Chinese fashion…one dish at a time. This drove Keziah Huidong crazy! When we are out alone together, we’ve learned to eat in more of a Chinese style and just share everything. She sooooo wanted to eat everybody else’s food! Finally my plate arrived. She dove into my food. The club sandwich wasn’t her favorite, but she ate more than half of my French fries. Somehow her order was forgotten so her food arrived last. Now she wasn’t too hungry and since they other kids were now finishing up and going back to play, she abandoned her plate.

Tonight, after our naps and resting time, we just weren’t terribly hungry. We decided to just walk across the street for McD. Everyone else must have felt the same way tonight because we kept running into dads bringing back Pizza Hut and McDonald’s for their families too.

Everyone is tired. Everyone wants to go home. The things that you start missing may sound so crazy. We are not big city people. I want so much just to be able to see. To look out and see the horizon. To watch the sun rise and set each day. Christopher and I both agreed that we miss the lake area back home. Driving too and from our house over the lake bridge and damn area is so beautiful and relaxing even in a car filled with noisy kids. I want to wash my clothes in my own washing machine. I don’t want to have to wear things twice. I want to take a shower in my own shower and sleep in my own bed. I want to feel clean. I want to know that there will be a toilet in each bathroom I venture into. I long to return to the order and structure of my daily life. As crazy as our days can be with so many kids, there is peace in know what each day should bring.

Oh, and just keep praying for us. We finally found out some details about our flights on Friday. We knew about our international flight, but somehow we had to get from Guangzhou to Shanghai where our flight leaves from. Surprise! We have to leave the hotel at 6:00 am to catch a 9:30 am (or was it 8:30 am), two hour-ish flight to Shanghai. Then we wait at the airport ALL DAY LONG until our next flight leaves at 5:00 pm. Thirteen hours in the air to Chicago. Ugh! Then hopefully we can get through customs and immigration and catch our next flight home within less than two hours. Even if all this works, we will still have been “traveling” for over 24 hours before we walk through the door of our home.

That sounds so good! HOME! However, I still don’t know if we’ll ever get any sleep that night? Reuniting with our other four, Keziah Huidong meeting her new brothers, sister and the dogs, being on a flip-flopped time schedule. The energy and excitement might just never end. Doesn’t that sound great?

Photos... (click image to enlarge)



Lunch at Lucy’s...for 40



Who’s got the camera now?



Bridal photos in the park



Waiting for lunch



Playing with friends





Can you hear that giggle?



Soccer skill training



Spicy Girl with attitude



For Miranda - a great chinese orange soda